


Divergence

by brink



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Dark, F/M, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-05-11 18:20:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5637088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brink/pseuds/brink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unconnected drabbles about certain scenes from the series which may have turned out differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. AKA Take a Bloody Number

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Character death and general emotional pain.

"Kill her," Kilgrave orders into the microphone, his malicious voice filling the venue as much as it fills Luke Cage's mind.

And Luke Cage moves to obey.

Shortly after, Kilgrave departs in a run. They seem equally matched, his Jessica and the expressionless lout trying to kill her, and Kilgrave feels the pressure. If Jessica wins the fight and offs Cage, she going after him next - and Kilgrave knows the kind of mindless rage that follows losing the one you love. Jessica won't hold back from killing him if it comes to that. So Kilgrave is rooting for Cage, because, all feelings aside, Jessica's got to go, shame that it is.

He's out on the street before he is struck by a terrible sense of regret. It struggles past his instincts for self-preservation and roots him to the ground. A world without Jessica? Unthinkable. Unacceptable. He's not Kevin bloody Thompson, he is _Kilgrave_ , and he gets what he wants. He'll find other ways of controlling her, like at the house. It'll be a challenge, it'll be fun. Dangerous too, of course, probably a little ill-advised if he's being honest, but he'll have his Jessica.

No, he won't.

Luke Cage has snapped her neck by the time Kilgrave finds them in the basement.

The existence of Jessica in his life had opened doors for feelings Kilgrave had never known before. Now the final departure of her does the same. He thought he knew what it felt to lose her, but this is nothing like when she left him for dead. He stares at her empty, unseeing eyes, and is filled with intense horror, with heartbreak, and with a blinding rage he has never felt the like of before.

"You killed her," he hisses out between clenched teeth. He has honest-to-god tears in his eyes. "You took Jessica away from me!"

"You... you told me to," murmurs Cage. He staggers back against the wall and shakes his head from side to side like he is trying to shake Kilgrave's orders right out of his brain.

"You... you... Jessica," rambles Kilgrave. It's as though the whole world has collapsed around him, and he can't make sense of any it. "I didn't want this!" he shouts at Cage accusingly.

"It was your command..."

"Yeah, well here's another one! _Kill yourself!_ "

Luke Cage stands there, trembling, pain radiating from his eyes as he looks at Jessica's broken body. Kilgrave feels as though he may burst out of his own skin from sheer fury. Cage, thinking Jessica's death hurts _him_? Why, because they connected physically once or twice? Kilgrave and Jessica were connected by that and so much more, and now Cage has taken her away.

"Didn't you hear me?" Kilgrave yells, the words hitching on a sob. "End yourself!"

"I don't know how," whispers Cage brokenly. "I don't know. Jessica..."

"Well," screams Kilgrave, " _TRY_!"

But Cage doesn't. He just stands there. And then he collapses to his knees next to Jessica.

A chilling realisation rushes through Kilgrave. Not only is Jessica dead: Cage is now outside of his control, just like Jessica was after killing Reva. _A little slow on the uptake, aren't you,_ his own voice mocks in his head. How many people out there are in fact running free because he made them kill someone? Suddenly, the world doesn't seem like such a playground for Kilgrave. He stares at Cage and for the first time is properly intimidated by his size and the power hidden beneath the indestructible skin. Cage was powerful enough to off Jessica, for Christ's sake. Kilgrave stands no chance at all if Cage turns on him.

"I couldn't stop myself," whispers Cage brokenly. "I couldn't... you made me..." He looks up. Their eyes lock over Jessica's corpse. " _You_."

"Cage!" yells Kilgrave. His voice is too shrill for his own liking, but he has to do something about this clusterfuck of a situation if he wants to get out alive, and boy, does he ever. "If anything happens to me, people will die!"

Cage rises to his feet like a beast out of hell, fire and grief in his eyes. "So long as you go too, I don't care."

"She would." Kilgrave gestures to Jessica, as much as it pains him to spare her even a passing glance. "She would care a whole lot. That's what she did." The stupid girl. None of this would have happened if she hadn't been difficult in that way.

Cage takes a menacing step forward.

"Patsy - Trish - is one of them," Kilgrave improvises wildly. "And not in a pretty way, either. I can be creative about these things, I've had some practice at it. It'll be on air, broadcasted to thousands of people."

Cage hesitates. He doesn't know Kilgrave is lying, and he most definitely doesn't know it's all pointless either way: The commands don't hold if Kilgrave is dead. At least, that's how the theory goes. But none of them really know for sure, so there's that.

"You killed Jessica..." whispers Cage. He seems like he's trying to make sense of the situation, like a confused dog poking at its master's corpse. "You killed Reva. You have to go."

Kilgrave shakes his head. "None of that is true. Jessica killed Reva, and you killed Jessica. We both lost our loved ones. It's done, it's over. Just..."

A silence descends on them as heavy as death itself. Cage is looking at Jessica, his whole body slumping like he is breaking apart from within. And Kilgrave, Kilgrave looks at her as well. She is so perfect, even in death. How many times did he watch her sleep and marvel at her beauty, feel triumph because she was his? But she's not sleeping now.

Jessica Jones is forever out of his reach.

 _How could I have let it come to this?_ The thought gnaws at him with pointy little teeth, digging into his heart. _My powers are everything. How did I not stop this?_ There's anger at Jessica as well, blessedly. How in the hell could she had let scum the likes of Luke Cage get the better of her? Had she...? Were there feelings in there that had made her hesitate? If so, she almost deserved what she got.

 _She should have been smarter,_ Kilgrave laments. _She should have known to chose the better option._ _We could have been happy!_  He wants to scream at her, too see her alive just for a chance to tell her how she has hurt him.

But it's done. It's over.

"... Just make sure you give her a proper burial," he says to Cage. "And a purple dress to wear to the grave. It's the best colour on her."

Then, before the big hulk of a man can decide to pursue his anger instead of his grief, Kilgrave bolts out the door, hounded by pain, hatred, regret, by the failure of his own powers, and by Jessica's smile most of all.


	2. AKA 1,000 Cuts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jessica jumps.  
> (Maybe she shouldn't have.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware: Violence and Kilgrave at his worst lie ahead. Seriously.

The wind sets her free.

It is such a gentle push, yet enough to lift the yellow gown forward, beckoning. Jessica leans with the wind, extends a foot. And then she's over the edge. She hears him, Kilgrave, but even that she is protected from, because his words are blown away, impossible to hear and so impossible to obey.

The fall is an ecstatic rush to freedom.

Then her feet connect, and her knees slam into the pavement. A jolt goes all the way up her spine. It hurts, but unlike anything Kilgrave has submitted her to, it's a sweet hurt. She did it to herself, and she's free now.

There's no white horse, only a bleak, near-empty street - but it's all the more magical for being real, and her in it with all her faculties and her freedom. Shakily, she stands up. Jessica is strong, but her body still aches from the impact with the ground. She starts down the sidewalk, wobbling, trying to get her bearings and trying to run.

 _Trish-Trish-Trish_ runs through her mind in a staccato rhythm. Trish, and then a plane to a place Kilgrave will never, ever find them. A happy ending far from harm.

The idea propels her into sprint, when she hears Kilgrave bellow her name.

"JESSICA!"

Jessica mindlessly ducks into an alley, flinging herself into hiding behind some trashcans. She presses her hands over her ears to the point of pain until all she can hear is the mad beat of her blood rushing through her veins, and her haggard, exalted breathing.

Through a crack between the cans, she keeps an eye on the mouth of the alley. Kilgrave soon appears. He looks thunderstruck. Rage and disbelief contort is face into a demented expression. His head whips around and he spins on his heel, searching. She watches his mouth form her name again, and then an order - _Come back! Come back right now!_ \- and she dreads the pull of his influence. But it doesn't come. Jessica is crushing her own ears against her skull, and she can't hear him.

She watches him continue down the street in a run.

She's so close. So fucking close to be rid of him. But what to do - wait it out or run now, risking that he's still close and will see her? It's impossible to know which is more right, and the deciding factor is this: The worst imaginable scenario is him finding her here, crouching like a coward, waiting to be collected and put to heel. No - however this escape ends, she will want to know she gave it her all.

So Jessica springs to her feet and runs out of the alley, turning to the opposite direction of where Kilgrave went without even looking to see if he's still there, if he sees her. She still has her hands over her ears. After a few steps, she prepares to put power in her legs to bound into the air.

_What's the highest you've jumped?_

_I don't know._

_Oh, come on, give me something. No - that's not quite what I meant, darling, but thanks for the lamp - tell me, how many storeys have you cleared? To your recollection._

_Four, one time._

_Four! Bloody amazing. Do you think you could do five, for me?_

To escape him, she will do even better than that.

That's the plan, anyway, when she is suddenly tackled and tossed on the ground.

Jessica spins wildly. A woman is on top of her - she's in her fourties, wearing a jogging outfit, a pink headband, and a frantic expression in her eyes.

"Jessica Jones?" she says. "Are you Jessica Jones?"

"No!" sobs Jessica. "No, I'm not her, I'm not."

"I found her!" screams the woman. "I've got Jessica!"

Jessica punches the woman in the gut, and she crumbles, falling to the side. When Jessica gets to her feet, she sees four more people sprinting her way, one of them having clearly just left his car running in the street.

"Stop, Jessica Jones!" yells someone. But it's not Kilgrave, so she doesn't. She whirls and tries to jump again, but as her feet leave the ground, a set of arms close around her midsection, and she is forced back down by the weight of another body. In a moment she is crowded by people, all yelling, all trying to hold her down.

"We've got her!"

"Jessica is here!"

"Don't let her up!"

Jessica grabs the front of some business man's shirt and uses it to pull him into another guy, freeing herself from them. She pulls, and shoves, and tries desperately not to hurt anybody - but they are mindless, propelled by orders from Kilgrave which clearly did not include any kind of self-preservation. Still, Jessica manages to free herself. And she starts back up on her run - then stops dead in her tracks.

There's a boy, only six or seven, with a Swiss army knife in his hand. He has pulled out the little blade and perched it against his eye.

"You have to stop, Jessica Jones," says the child.

Jessica's mind goes blank. She stands there and stares, unable to see a way out of this hell Kilgrave has made for her. If she rushes forward, will she be able to get the knife from him before...? No, not in this life.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers. "None of this is your fault."

"Please don't run anymore," whimpers the little boy. His hand is shaking, the blade twitching a hairs breadth from his eye.

Jessica is still looking for a way out when a simple order rings through the air: "Everybody, STOP!"

Frozen, staring at the boy, Jessica listens to his approaching footsteps. She knows Kilgrave's sounds by heart, and she feels the anger in the smart taps of his designer shoes beating the pavement as he nears.

"You fucking cunt," snarls Kilgrave.

That's a new one - but then, she's never almost escaped before.

 _Almost._ The word punches into her gut like a knife.

Kilgrave appears before her, breaking her line of sight to the boy. He is livid.

"I gave you a chance, Jessica. A goddamn chance to prove you've matured enough to start accepting what we are. And what do you do? Betray my bloody trust, that's what! Apologize!"

"I'm sorry," she says, voice breaking.

There's a moment where Kilgrave seems too angry to even speak. His eyes are flashing at her, the veins in his neck pulling as he grits his teeth.

"Oh, I know," he finally breathes. "But not as sorry as you will be. C'mere, lad."

He waves the boy forward, and the boy comes. He still holds the knife close to his eye. Kilgrave's hand latches onto the back of the boy's neck in a tight grip.

"No," whispers Jessica brokenly. "Punish me. Leave him out of it, Kilgrave, please! Please, punish me!"

"I am," he says coldly. Then he turns his attention to the boy. "Why does a child like you have such a thing anyway?"

"M-my daddy gave me it," mutters the boy.

"No, your daddy gave it _to_  you," corrects Kilgrave, as though this is in any way the moment for a lesson in proper grammar. "Why did he? Did you earn it?"

"He s..." breathes the boy, barely audible.

"Speak up!"

"He s-said I was a big boy now. He said big boys deserve more responsibility. He said - he said - he said I should only use the knife when he's there. He said we could sharpen sticks together to use for making s'mores!"

With that, the kid starts bawling, the hand holding the knife shaking worse than ever.

"Shut up right now!" commands Kilgrave harshly.

"Kilgrave, I'm begging you," says Jessica. She can't move, but she says everything she can before he has time to silence her. "I'll do anything, just leave him alone. I'll never run again, I swear to you. I swear I'll stay. I'll be whatever you want. Please!"

Kilgrave is considering her without an ounce of empathy.

"Maybe I ought to make _you_ do it," he says airily.

With that, all the blood in Jessica's veins freezes to ice.

"This really isn't about the child anyhow, is it?" Kilgrave releases the boys neck and lightly strokes his blonde hair instead. "It's about you and me. About responsibility and commitment. And consequences, naturally."

Jessica just stands there, shaking, unable to comprehend what will happen.

"Yes. There's some merit to that idea, I think." Without looking away from Jessica, Kilgrave says, "What's your name, boy?"

"Charlie."

"Why don't you hand that knife over to Jessica, Charlie?"

Shaking and crying silently, Charlie does. Puppetlike, Jessica accepts it.

"Jessica," says Kilgrave. His voice is like velvet. All the hitches from his anger have been smoothed over, and now only clean, clear malice remains. "Tell me honestly: What is the worst thing you can imagine doing to this child with his own knife?"

Jessica, against her will, locks eyes with Charlie. His are big and blue and terrified.

"Murder him," she whispers.

Kilgrave huffs. "How unimaginative. There are different ways to go about that, isn't there? Can you think of nothing?"

She actually, literally can't. Jessica's mind is a blank - one big void with room for just the one emotion: Abject horror.

A thought emerges cold and fully formed from the void.

_He is going to make me torture and kill this boy._

"Cut him, Jessica," says Kilgrave.

Jessica moves forward, but as she does her vision tunnels. Kilgrave says something else, but the words are muffled. Jessica feels her arm reaching out while blackness eats at the edges of her vision. The world starts to fall away.

The last thing she sees is Charlie's blue eyes staring into hers. She thinks she hears him scream.

 

* * *

 

It's dark.

It must be nighttime. The curtains are closed. A bit of light falls through a nearly-closed door at the other end of the room. Jessica is lying in bed under silken covers. She is still wearing the yellow dress, but her boots have been removed. She sits up slowly.

A smell is in the air, a cloying, metallic thing, sweet and rank in equal measures.

Jessica does not want to be awake. Jessica does not want to be alive.

Before she can consider what to do with herself, the door to the other room is opened fully. There's the outline of Kilgrave, facing her but cast in darkness against the brightness of the room behind him.

"I thought I heard you scuffling about."

His mood has switched from earlier - his voice is different.

"We need to reassert some rules right off the bat. No hurting yourself or me. No calls for help. _And_ _no bloody escape attempts_. Not for twelve hours, at least."

He does not sound vindictive, triumphant or even very angry. Rather, Jessica would judge his emotions to be in the range of the disappointed, the regretful, maybe resentment.

All this she catalogues with a strange sense of detachment. Being mindful of his ever-switching moods has become a hateful second nature to Jessica, something she does automatically in the back of her mind at all times.

Something else, at this moment, holds far more importance to her. Even though she can hardly bear to put words to her thoughts, she does.

"What did I do to him?"

"The weepy brat? Who cares? This has got to do with you and me, Jessica."

"I care."

"No, you don't. You care about me."

Just like that, her thoughts hone in on Kilgrave like nothing else existed.

Kilgrave switches on some lights and comes to sit at her bedside. There is the barest hint of concern in his voice when he asks her how she is.

"I feel terrible."

"I had a doctor look you over while you were out. He guessed fatigue, maybe mental overload. Depression. Do you feel very depressed, Jessica?"

"Yes." Easy.

"That explains it. You, jumping. I couldn't get my head around why you would jump."

Jessica is so tired and so worn. She doesn't have the force of will to tell Kilgrave it should be very obvious indeed why she jumped. That as long as he forces her to be with him, she will always want to escape. That this little arrangement of his is eating her alive.

She looks down instead. Then she wishes she hadn't.

In the light, she sees the dried blood that clings to her gown in stiff, brown patches.

Jessica makes a small, distressed sound.

"Oh, that?" Kilgrave shrugs. "Maybe I should have undressed you. But I'll confess I wanted you to wake up and know you had done something to the boy. I was... angrier when I put you to bed than I am now."

A war is going on in Jessica's mind. She was told not to care about the boy, so her emotions are seeking a different outlet. "You... made... me..."

"If you are unhappy," says Kilgrave matter-of-factly, "you don't jump off a balcony, Jessica. You tell me about it, and I make it better. I can't accept you running off, just because you have yet to learn to appreciate the life I'm offering you. I don't care about anyone else the way I do about you. But I know you care more than you should about bloody well any given stranger. So if making you hurt someone is the way to teach you to do as I say, then that's what I'll do."

"Tell me what happened," whispers Jessica, staring at the stains of blood on her gown and on her hands. "Tell me, please."

"Little Charlie's got a nasty gash across his chest that you gave him. But he's alive, as far as I now. The mother called an ambulance."

Jessica can't care about Charlie yet, so instead she thinks: _I'm not a killer._

Kilgrave lays his hand on the side of her face and turns her to look at him.

"If you run again - ever - I'll make sure you finish what we started today on whoever is available. I know you don't want that kind of blood on your hands. Do you, Jessica?"

"No," says Jessica.

"Good."

A moment stretches between them. Kilgrave frowns at her, but not in anger. Eventually he leans forward and rests his forehead against hers.

"I was scared to death that I'd lost you today," he murmurs. "You'll never know what it did to me, seeing you disappear over the edge like that. No one's ever made me feel like that."

He pauses. Maybe he wants her to say something of her own volition. But Jessica has nothing to offer.

Finally he draws back, smiling at her in a chagrined manner.

"I know you need me, Jessica. Without me, you would return to your sad little life of semi-alcoholism and standing in Saint Patsy's shadow. I just never realised till now I need you too. You and I, we belong together."

He hugs her tightly - and for Jessica, it's like being in the coils of a snake. In another moment, the tears are coming hot and fast, along with the deep, shaking, humiliating sobs.

"Shh," whispers Kilgrave against her hair. "Shh, Jessica, it's alright. I'm here. I'll always be here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a cop-out, leaving the boy alive! But I couldn't do it :-(


	3. AKA Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, Kilgrave shoulda maybe thought that one command in the finale through. Words, Kilgrave. They matter.
> 
> This drabble was requested by Detective_Animator and is based on their idea :-) Thanks for all your lovely support!

Jessica says, "What'd you expect?"

Kilgrave cradles her head in his hands, watching the blood flow from her mouth and down into her hair. It looks black against her pristine skin.

"Not this," he gasps. "Not you. I didn't mean _you_."

She blinks, slowly - so slowly he has time to feel panic at the idea that her eyes may stay closed. But they don't, not yet, not yet.

"' _Start killing each other_ ,'" says Jessica, then tuts softly. "Poor choice of words, asshole."

He has to give her that one, but Kilgrave doesn't think he's the only one to blame. " _You're_ supposed to be invincible," he snarls through gritted teeth. "How the bloody hell do you get taken down by some - some random nobody - I don't even know who -"

He looses his train of thought and whips his head up. All the others there, every other miserable person, including Saint Pain-in-the-Arse Patsy, are on the ground, frozen with their faces down. One of them did it. Kilgrave never saw the deed, but there is a pointed piece of metal buried in Jessica's midsection, and somebody put it there. Somebody who will soon be very, very, very sorry.

Jessica mumbles something.

"What?" All his attention is back on her. He tries to wipe the blood off her face, but he only manages to smear it. "What, Jessica?" His voice is hushed.

"... not nobody," mumbles Jessica. Her eyes are growing distant. "Nobody is nobody. Everybody is somebody. I'm only here because you don't get that. Never did."

A wave of anger rises in Kilgrave at her words. "Bullshit. None of this is my fault. We could have been happy, Jessica, I swear we could. But happiness isn't for you, is it? You want misery - well, you win. It's yours."

"Not true. At least when I'm dead I'll be free of you. And I won't be a reason for you to kill anymore."

"Oh, whoop-dee-doo," spits Kilgrave. "Jessica Jones gets to die a hero."

"And you get to live a villain. C'est la fucking vie."

"Stupid girl." He hugs her close, listens to her stilted breathing. "I would have taken you to Paris, Jessie," he whispers in her ear. "We could have walked by the Seine, seen the Eiffel Tower, made love in the Louvre. You could have learned French for real."

"Way ahead of you. Bonjour baguette." Jessica coughs and blood gets splattered everywhere. "Oh god," she mutters with tired regret, like it's just another morning with a bad hangover. Her eyes meets his. "Last moments," she declares.

 _She doesn't know that_ , thinks Kilgrave, _she doesn't know_. But panic fizzles through him like electricity, and he wants to hang onto every second that's ticking by. Because it's true: His Jessica Jones is really dying. It doesn't matter who did it, it doesn't matter what Killgrave will do to the person. It's done. All his life, Kilgrave has got what he wanted. Only when Jessica walked away from him did he know what true longing felt like, and he was shocked by the intensity of the feeling. Now he is beyond terrified that she is about to leave for good. No convoluted plans to get her back. No manipulations to trap her in his web. Just... gone. Out of his reach forever.

"No," he whispers. "Jessica, stay with me. Stay."

She quirks an eyebrow. The light in her eyes is going out. "Suck a dick, Kilgrave. You don't get to decide this. Feels bad, doesn't it?"

"Jessica." He puts his forehead to hers, nearly crossing his eyes locking gazes with her. "Listen to me. _Listen._ " He breathes deeply, feels all the new raw power he has unlocked cursing through his veins, and channels every bit of it into one single word, his final command: " **Live.** "

Jessica Jones, as a final act, smiles and defies him.

**Author's Note:**

> “You're a lot of shitty things, but I never thought you were delusional.” Really, Jessica? Really?


End file.
